HOLMES

Step one, left side; second step, middle; skip step three, right on four, right again five…

He was glad that he could remember the pattern. At one point he knocked his empty wine glass on the bannister, and even with no one to appreciate it, he rolled his eyes at his own clumsiness: no sense in knowing how to ascend the stairs silently if you accompany yourself all the way on percussion. A whispered chuckle escaped his lips at his own feeble joke and he clapped a hand over his mouth. Two interesting things happened - One: he realised his own tipsiness. Two: he had a flash of memory – his hand pressed to John's lips in the darkened sitting room of 224, the night they took down Moran.

He stopped half way up the stairs to gather himself a little. He put down the glass for starters, and ran his mind over the sequence that would take him creak-free to the top landing.

Middle of six, skip seven, middle eight, right edge of nine…

He probably needn't have bothered. John had had just as much to drink. He was probably fast asleep by now. Sherlock checked his watch: Twelve-forty – fifty minutes after John had gone to bed. He'd have read for fifteen minutes, then his eyes would have been too heavy to carry on. He would have searched the coverlet for the bookmark, found it wedged under a fold of his bathrobe, replaced it in the book, put the book aside, and switched out the light.

Sherlock opened his eyes and found himself at the top of the stairs. He bit his numbed bottom lip as the floorboard creaked beneath his foot – a new one to add to the sequence. He'd work it out tomorrow. Passing the bathroom door, he noticed that John had left his bedroom door open four inches. Strange, he thought, I always hear him close his door at night. It's his habit. Why's he left it open? Sherlock peered around the corner and saw John languorously asleep atop his coverlet, still wrapped in his white bathrobe. His book was beside him on the bed.

Sherlock drank in the sight like another glass of wine, and it had the same effect. He'd never seen this before: John, at ease, self-possessed, asleep in his own bedroom. One arm was thrown wide, his hand spread on the mattress by his hip; the other was lost beneath his pillow. In the gloom, Sherlock could just make out that he had one knee bent, one bare foot resting on his opposite calf.

"P," Sherlock whispered to himself with a little puff of air. "Perfect." He took a step into the room. He knew what John wanted – had known it for such a long time. It was within his power to grant him… to give him… He took another step into the room. His own hands felt like slabs, looking at John's small ones, and he folded them over his stomach as he advanced further into the room.

He was standing over the sleeping man. Sherlock could see from his utter relaxation, his perfect stillness, that John was in deep sleep. He smiled. John had an incredible ability to lose himself in sleep. A hurricane could blow through the room and he would sleep on. He lowered himself gently onto the edge of the bed.

John didn't stir. Sherlock shifted himself, twisting around until he had only one foot on the floor and he ran his hand over the coverlet to smooth it down. He picked up John's book and set it down on the bedside table. He covered John's open hand with his own.

Nothing.

He leaned forward to study John's face.

Nothing.

Sherlock could smell the resinous tang of wine on John's breath, and feel the heat of his skin, though perhaps there was a little of both these things emanating from himself as well. His bathrobe was only moderately closed over him, and Sherlock let himself see all that he could see. He trailed his eyes over every inch of skin like a silk veil. Was it wrong to indulge himself this way?

Truly the voice of an addict, he thought. When did this become my drug?

Long enough ago that it was in his system. He needed this. He wanted more. Staying away so long had put him in withdrawal, and now, if he let himself, he could binge. He drew his eyes back to John's face, so expressive when he was awake, and his parted lips. He wants it. I want it. Just…

He lowered himself awkwardly over the prone form, and closed his lips, lightly as he dared, onto John's. Quickly as it was done, he pulled away, expecting a sudden start.

Nothing.

Sherlock sighed heavily to himself, feeling warmth rush through all his limbs. He rose, and with a single glance behind him and a bemused smile on his lips, he retreated, kicking his forgotten wine glass down the creaking stairs.

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